Share this article

Bills woudn't pass on picking a QB in 1st round

BOCA RATON, Fla. -- As far as Doug Whaley is concerned, there's no cutoff for when a quarterback would make sense for the Buffalo Bills to select in next month's NFL Draft.

The Bills' general manager said Monday the team could very well pick one with the 19th overall choice, even if the two presumed top two players at the position -- California's Jared Goff and Nort Dakota State's Carson Wentz -- are gone.

"Any round we could pick any position," Whaley told reporters at the NFL meetings here.

With the Bills set with Tyrod Taylor as their starter, the GM wasn't locking the team into picking a quarterback in the draft. However, he did insist that it would "for sure add one, possibly two" via the draft, free agency or trade.

"There's many possibilities right now, because there's still some guys out there on the street," Whaley said. "There might be some trade possibilities where once we get closer to the draft or draft day, teams may call up and say they have a quarterback (available), so we're going to keep all options open."

If the Bills do go the draft route for a QB, Whaley said he wasn't expecting them to land an immediate starter.

"In this draft, I don't know if there's a guy that's going to be able to step in from Day One and have complete success," he said. "Of course, there's always that possibility. But what I feel confident about in this draft is there's a lot of quarterbacks that need a year or two of seasoning that can project later in their career to be either very good number twos or solid number ones. So we're excited about that."

Asked if, as some analysts have noted, Stanford's Kevin Hogan is the most NFL-ready quarterback from the college ranks, Whaley said, "I would say for us, probably, because he runs the same system we run (because Bills offensive coordinator Greg Roman is Stanford's former OC). Now for everybody else, I can’t say that."

Vic Carucci – Vic Carucci covers the Bills and NFL for The News. With four decades of experience as a pro football writer and broadcaster, he is a co-host on SiriusXM NFL Radio and a Pro Football Hall of Fame selector. Vic has authored 10 books about football (including multiple New York Times best-sellers) and is a past president of the Professional Football Writers of America.